Identification of Nonlinear State-Space Models: The Case of Unknown Model Structure

AbstractThis article presents an algorithm for identification of nonlinear state-space models when the “true” model structure of a process is unknown. In order to estimate the parameters in a state-space model, one needs to know the model structure and have an estimate of states. An approximation of the model structure is obtained using radial basis functions centered around a maximum a posteriori estimate of the state trajectory. A particle filter approximation of smoothed states is then used in conjunction with expectation maximization algorithm for estimating the parameters. The proposed approach is illustrated through an example.